Just a few months after launching its sticker offering, Twitter has rolled out promoted stickers, giving brands another way to interact with users on the platform.
Pepsi is the first company to sign on, with the brand set to share nearly 50 custom stickers across 10 markets for consumers to use as part of their global PepsiMoji campaign.
Twitter users are able to add the stickers to any photo they take, and the branded stickers appear next to other stickers in the “sticker library”. Stickers will also act as a visual hashtag, meaning that photos with a brand’s sticker will be connected and discoverable to anyone who taps that sticker. This allows a brand to see and engage with the people who are using their stickers.
These stickers, especially now with the branded component, bare a striking resemblance to Snapchat's stickers, filters and lenses, which also have brand integrations.
Twitter isn't the first social platform to blatantly emulate Snapchat's features, with Facebook’s Instagram recently rolling out stories, which is an exact replica, in name and product offering, of what Snapchat created.
While Pepsi is the exclusive launch partner for promoted stickers, moving forward brands will be able to create four or eight stickers — like accessories and other props — for users to add to their own photos.
The launch of Twitter's promoted stickers comes a month after the company launched a global marketing push, aimed at tackling the misconceptions surrounding the brand.
Speaking with AdNews, newly minted global CMO for Twitter, Leslie Berland, explained that many see Twitter as a social network, but rather they see it as a news platform.
“Millions of people use and love Twitter and know what it's for, but we took a step back and for months have been looking through the people who don’t use Twitter as we wanted to understand the 'why' behind that,” she said.
“When we talked to people around the world we saw a few key trends emerge and one of the most prominent was that people were not really understanding what Twitter was for - and were thinking we were a social network - a place to find their friends.
“It was really interesting to see that cut across the board and we realised we clearly had a lot of work to do to clarify, explain and educate on what Twitter is about.”
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